Foreign creditors leveraged Italy’s war debt to impose austerity

Evidence

Moreover, to fully explain why austerity thrived in Italy, we need to tell another side of the story: how foreign interests infl uenced— and in some cases defi ned— the rebuilding of a country that had teetered on the brink of Bolshevism. By the 1920s Italy was a country with substantial war debt, and was heavily reliant on imports of goods and raw material. In other words, it was a country beholden to others: fundamentally dependent on foreign capital and credit for its economic investment and development. Italy’s position of dependence meant that international creditors could exert strong pressures— including pressures that would open Italy to foreign investment, even at the expense of the Italian people. Th is came in the form of austerity. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1326

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s broader austerity-as-class-weapon thesis: foreign creditor pressure is the international vector of the same dynamic documented domestically. — connects to: Austerity served as proof of creditworthiness to international finance for the Fascist regime — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 1435

Broader Connections

• Austerity served as proof of creditworthiness to international finance for the Fascist regime #corroborates (0.82) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1435